al-qaida-affiliated organization. another alert right now on the floor of the u.s. senate. senate minority leader republican mitch mcconnell saying that raising tax rates in this economy is the last thing that the government should do in america. here is senator mcconnell just moments ago. have a listen. the only reason democrats are insisting on raising rates is because raising rates on the so-called rich is the holy grail of liberalism. their aim isn t job creation, they are interested in wealth destruction. bill: part of the reason why this is getting so much attention not just because the calendar has 30-some-order days before this has to be reached or we go over the cliff. timothy geithner arriving on the hill moments ago. first geithner is on the senate side then on the house side. art laugher who won the show nor
up. martha: okay. so president obama is also saying that he wants to raise taxes on families earning more than $250,000, but that move would only generate about $85 billion a year. that is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of u.s. debt. and that number is about what the federal government spends in just eight days. so if he gets what he wants everybody over 250,000 pays more it s going to cover eight and a half days of the government spending amount and some would say the government spending problem. art laugher joins me now. architect of reagan tphopl i raeug reagannomics. in washington they have a lot of work to do. the question is whether or not the tax issue, whether or not the president has flexibility on that. whether we go back to the 39% or whether it would be less than that. are you seeing any light in that discussion? if he s willing to negotiate
increases and deep spending cuts kick in at the end of december which could affect every american in this country. art laugher, former economic advisor to president ronald reagan with me today. art, good morning to you and welcome back. how are you, bill? bill: doing fine. thank you for your time. i look at some issues share with producers today. you say this is really serious and you underscore that. everybody considers it serious. you worked at the white house. you were in on these meetings. is this a forum for negotiation or is this what happens? it is a little talking to. they will both come in with their sides, their positions. there will be some sort of testing of the waters. we will see how responses are afterwards. we ll see aggressive play. then you will see which side starts giving in. we ll be following that in the next couple weeks. but obama has made it very clear, he believes he has a mandate but he really doesn t. he only got barely over 50% of the vote.
mike: respected economists and five of them are noble laureates. dave: hopefully it s decided on morn things, medicare and issues and let s hope that s the economist. and we have art laugher, he s coming up later on the program. maybe he can help to sift through. alisyn: it s easy and a clear chasm, the tax rate. mitt romney and paul ryan want to lower tax rates 25% respectively, depending how much you make and president obama wants to raise it for the wealthiest americans at least 3%. and i mentioned laugh ffer, showing why in the united states, he s got numbers to back it up for you, michael. alisyn: a numbers guy. mike: thank you, thank you. alisyn: we have a lot to tell you about at this hour, following recent attacks by
governor mitt romney for his tax plan. the president has dubbed to plan trickle down snake oil, that is his quote from the campaign trail yesterday. we ll take a closer look at his tax plan and talk to art laugher, the architect of reageanomics. gregg: the organization behind feelings to dead people and pets, state officials say they can open the door to voter fraud. martha: a deadly outbreak in texas is becoming a huge story. it s happening in dallas. the city is using a controversial method to stop the spread of this virus. for the first time that we ve seen this kind of effort in almost half a century. they are pretty bad. i m more worried about the west nile. i can always clean off whatever she eats, it doesn t matter. i m more worried about her getting sick. thursday.